Hesketh Pearson NON- FICTION A Life of BIOGRAPHY Shakespeare

Read by Simon Russell Beale with David Timson Daniel Philpott Caroline Faber

NA221612 1 The birth of William Shakespeare, 22/23 April 1564 10:34 2 POET AND PATRON: Venus and Adonis (1593) The Sonnets 13:43 3 THE PRENTICE PLAYWRIGHT (1590-93): Love’s Labour’s Lost 1:26 4 Henry VI Parts 1, 2, 3 • Richard III • The Taming of the Shrew 4:55 5 The Two Gentlemen of Verona • The Comedy of Errors 7:15 6 THE POET PLAYWRIGHT: (1594-1596): A Midsummer Night’s Dream 4:35 7 The Merchant of Venice 2:06 8 Richard II 2:33 9 Romeo and Juliet • King John 8:29 10 THE TOP OF HAPPY HOURS (1596-1603): Henry IV Parts 1 & 2 7:37 11 The Globe is erected in Southwark: Henry V 6:28 12 Much Ado About Nothing • As You Like It 5:32 13 Twelfth Night 3:51

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24 ROMANS AND GREEKS (1599-1603): The Earl of Essex 3:07 25 Julius Caesar 8:23 26 Property purchases in Stratford • Ben Jonson • All’s Well That End’s Well 8:23 27 Measure for Measure 1:59 28 LIFE’S FITFUL FEVER (1604-1606) 2:20 29 Hamlet 7:27 30 Othello 4:14 31 Macbeth 4:16 33 King Lear 6:27 34 GREEKS AND ROMANS (1606-1608): Timon of Athens • Pericles 2:51 35 Anthony and Cleopatra 5:05 36 Coriolanus 1:08 37 SUNSET (1609-1616): Cymbeline • A Winter’s Tale 6:00 38 The Tempest 2:25 39 Settled permanently at Stratford 12:25

Total time: 2:36:57

3 Hesketh Pearson A Life of Shakespeare A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE EARLY BIOGRAPHIES OF SHAKESPEARE

‘Speak of me as I am; nothing extenuate, Nor set down aught in malice.’

Othello’s plea for nothing more nor less are so few contemporary references to than the truth to be told when he is spoken Shakespeare, or that no one saw fit to ask of after his death, could be seen as a his surviving family about him before the posthumous plea by Shakespeare to the direct line became extinct in 1670. There are generations of biographers, who have felt eulogies by his friend Ben Jonson (‘Sweet moved to interpret his life and work Swan of Avon’); and passing references, by according to their own characters and his theatrical colleagues Heminge and persuasions. Condell in their Preface to the first Folio, to The plain truth is, however, that there is his working practices: ‘What he thought, he merely a handful of known and uttered with that easiness that we have substantiated facts about Shakespeare on scarce received from him a blot in his which to build, including the year of his papers’. These testify to his genius and the birth 1564 (though not the exact day) and high esteem in which he was held by those his death in 1616. who knew him well. But that’s about all we Between these hard facts exists a can safely testify to – opinions of the man world of surmise and wishful thinking that and not facts. has produced some very entertaining All we really have are his will, registers biographies and some which are plainly of births, deaths and marriages, a few ludicrous. ‘Extenuation’ has been necessary contracts for land and property deals to satisfy the curious. and the occasional involvement in a legal It does seem extraordinary that there dispute. There are no letters or anything of 4 a personal nature at all. next hundred years, culminating in Sir His first tentative biographers, therefore, Sidney Lee’s epic Life of 1898, which ran writing in the mid- to late-seventeenth into 14 editions. century were eager to grasp at anything to ‘He was not of an age, but for all time,’ fill out the meagre facts, and local legends said Jonson of Shakespeare, and it is a and traditions found their way into print. It curious fact that Shakespeare’s life and was in these early biographies that the story character has been interpreted by each of Shakespeare poaching deer and having succeeding age according to the prevailing to flee Stratford began; or the fiction that literary fashion of the time. Thus in his first contact with London theatre the eighteenth century, the Age of was tending the horses for the gentry Enlightenment, Shakespeare was seen as a outside the London playhouses. The brief rough, even uneducated poet, whose talent biographer John Aubrey (1626-97) was was ‘natural’, and whose works demanded responsible for one of the most colourful ‘improvement’ for a more refined age. legends: that Shakespeare’s father was a For the Romantics the emphasis was on butcher and his son following in the trade: his poetry, his deep sense of feeling, and, ‘when he killed a calf he would do it in a like his own King Lear, a battler against the high style, and make a speech.’ elements. It is not surprising therefore that These disparate tales were first gathered the most famous actor of the day, Edmund together into a formal biography in 1709 by Kean, was described as acting Shakespeare Nicholas Rowe (1674-1718). It is traditional like ‘flashes of lightning’. in tone and prefaces the first edited edition For the Victorians, Shakespeare was of the Works. As the eighteenth century transformed into an English gentleman, full progressed, a more scholarly approach was of wise saws, epithets and patriotic odes, adopted towards Shakespeare’s life and the the national poet and ultimately, by renowned Edmond Malone (1741-1812) Edwardian times, the literary representative was the first to eschew hearsay and legend of Empire. and interpret the documented facts, few It was in this era that the writer though they be. He set the standard for all Hesketh Pearson formulated his view of the main biographies that followed for the Shakespeare. He reacted against the stuffy 5 academic biographies that had proliferated wrote: ‘For me his works alone would have in the nineteenth century. ‘I doubt whether made life worth living; so I am writing about Shakespeare himself would have liked the something I love as much as life.’ This is the Shakespeareans any more than Christ infectious mood of Pearson’s ‘Life’. would have liked Christians’ he wrote. There have been many popular Pearson sought out the man behind the biographies of Shakespeare written since literary criticism, and wanted to make him Pearson’s was published in 1949, but few accessible to the ‘man in the street’. that make the reader (or listener) want to Pearson was an actor, and worked briefly know more of Shakespeare and his plays. for the great actor-manager Herbert Beerbohm Tree, playing minor parts in Tree’s Notes by David Timson epic productions of Shakespeare. His very personal interpretation of Shakespeare’s life is from the viewpoint of a man of the theatre. Shakespeare, like Pearson, had been an actor, and the man Pearson creates for us is very much in his own image. He brings an actor’s eye to his commentary on the texts, and is an undoubted labour of love. ‘Shakespeare filled my world’ he writes. When hospitalised with tuberculosis during the First World War, he attributes his survival to the Bard’s ability to make him laugh in the Falstaff scenes from Henry IV Part 2. It was a lifelong love affair and if, at times, Pearson gets carried away with his enthusiasm (even at one point telling us the colour of Shakespeare’s hair – unverified), we can forgive him, for he creates a stimulating and real personality. Pearson

6 Simon Russell Beale is one of Britain’s leading classical actors. He won Best Actor in the Evening Standard Awards for his individual interpretation of Hamlet, and his Ariel in The Tempest was marked by an Olivier Award. Among his many other staring roles in London theatre was Candide and Mosca in Volpone. He has a busy career in TV and film too, with appearances in Branagh’s production of Hamlet and in the outstanding TV dramatization of Persuasion. For Naxos AudioBooks he has also recorded The Life of Oscar Wilde and Great Speeches and Soliloquies of Shakespeare. David Timson has performed in modern and classic plays across the country and abroad, including Wild Honey for Alan Ayckbourn, Hamlet, The Man of Mode and The Seagull. He has appeared on TV in Nelson’s Column and Swallows and Amazons, and in the film The Russia House. A familiar and versatile audio and radio voice, he reads The Middle Way – The Story of Buddhism, and performs in Hamlet and A Midsummer Night’s Dream for Naxos AudioBooks. He has directed Twelfth Night, Othello, Henry V and Richard III for Naxos AudioBooks. Daniel Philpott trained at LAMDA and, after success in the prestigious Carleton Hobbs Award for Radio Drama, recorded for BBC Radio 4. His theatre work includes various productions on the London fringe. For Naxos AudioBooks he has also recorded Frankenstein, Famous People in History II and Dracula.

Caroline Faber trained at Webber Douglas. On leaving, she made an immediate impact with performances at the Royal National Theatre, Watford Palace and other theatres in the UK. Her television appearances include Midsomer Murders and Comedy Nation.

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The music on this recording is taken from the NAXOS catalogue

GIBBON MUSIC FOR VIOLS, VOICES AND KEYBOARDS 8.550603 Rose Consort of Viols, Red Byrd

DOWLAND LUTE SONGS 8.553381 Steven Rickards, counter tenor, Dorothy Linell, lute

GIBBON CHORAL AND ORGAN MUSIC 8.553130 Oxford Camerata, Jeremy Summerly

The music was programmed by Nicolas Soames

Cover picture: William Shakespeare. Courtesy: National Portrait Gallery. 8 Recorded by Norman Goodman, Edited by Sarah Butcher Produced by Nicolas Soames Abridged by David Hesketh Pearson A Life of Shakespeare T imson ,

Read by Simon Russell Beale SBS with David Timson • Daniel Philpott • Caroline Faber Motiv

The plays of William Shakespeare, and his famous lines, are part of ation Sound the national consciousness. There may be few solid facts about Shakespeare the man, and yet not only do we want to know all about him – we feel, through his plays, we do. In this classic biography, Hesketh Pearson puts his skills as an actor and biographer Made in Germany p ALL RIGHTS RESER to lively use, looking at the man as much through his work – the BRO 2001 NAXOS great plays and poems – as through the extant facts. Having heard ADCASTING this affectionate account, you will go back to the plays with more AudioBooks Ltd. AND COPYING OF . understanding and enjoyment. VED . UNA UTHORISED PUBLIC PERFORMANCE, © 2001 NAXOS THESE COMP A AudioBooks Ltd. CT DISCS PROHIBITED

View our catalogue online at . www.naxosaudiobooks.com Total time 2:36:57